EP 77 // JR Kanu on the Importance of Retrospectives

NOTE: Please excuse any errors in this transcript; it was created using an AI tool. Akua Nyame-Mensah 00:00 entrepreneur, design coach, creator of faces the five spending personalities, author of the money, brain, career and money management in your 20s and 30s. Today's guests does, I think, an amazing job of describing his approach of making sense of chaos. And so if you've ever wondered to yourself, why should I reflect? Why should I take time to retrospect? What is important about cultivating my self awareness? This is the episode for you. Hello, and welcome to the open door conversations podcast. My name is a Korea yami Mensa I also respond to Aqua and Akua. I'm a certified executive and leadership coach recognised learning and organisational development facilitator, speaker and former startup executive. And I am so excited because this year I'm celebrating five years of working for myself five years of supporting leaders. And I am so grateful because I've had the opportunity to partner with amazing organisations, from hydro startups to multinational brands all around the world. In 2022. Alone, I serve over 600 Yes, over 600 leaders around the world. And in this podcast, you will have the opportunity to learn my three step leadership framework. I actually break it down in Episode 71. I use this framework with my high achieving and entrepreneurial minded clients that are juggling a million responsibilities so they can easily build wealth. This three step framework is going to teach you how to leverage your innate personality to learn how to prioritise and maximise not just your time, but also your money. You don't have to work harder or turn into someone else to get more God. Let's tune into this week's episode. All right, I am so excited. So so excited about this week's guest, we have Jr. in the house, Jr. To start us off, I wanted to talk about some of these accomplishments you shared with us. And then of course, I'll give you an opportunity to introduce yourself. But you put three things down here, which I think are incredible. So this first is writing your book, money brain, tell me a little bit about it. Unknown Speaker 02:31 So as a Well, first of all, thanks for having me, you showed when my company reached started, it was first, a quick way to show people how sorry, where their money was going. And then eventually, which is one of the things you learn when you are working directly with people and for people, they had questions. And those questions piled up into a newsletter. And eventually we realised we were answering a lot of the same questions over and over again. And that's how the book happened. And so I'm proud of this as an accomplishment, because we want to say we this was me and the person who was working with me on our community engagement at the time, we didn't set out to write a book we just set out to be honest and faithful to the work of engaging people who really came to trust us as their friends. They're Big Brother, Big Sister, and the work of figuring out their career and finances. And voila, a book happened. And it was, I think, the pride and the pride comes from just realising that this was not a labour of love, as people say, but like a response to love, right? From a from a community of Akua Nyame-Mensah 03:39 people. I love that. And I was actually at your book launch. And so it's really exciting that this is something that is really core to what you do. I think this is true entrepreneurship, when you truly are solving a problem. And you realise that rather than focusing so much on what the product is, right? Because you could say, as someone who focuses on technology, why would I write a book, but you went at it, and you realise that this could also be a tool to help solve the problem and support you with this other element in your business as well. Exactly, Unknown Speaker 04:09 exactly. And in fact, that is what it turned out to be the book turned out on more than one occasion to be almost like a safety net. When technology wasn't quite making sense where we were, it was a Northstar, right, the thing that resonated so strongly was a great way to call us back to what our mission as a company was, what to unlock what to lean into those kinds of things. So I think yeah, that's one of my, I'm very proud of that. Akua Nyame-Mensah 04:38 Yes. And we have two others here. So the next one we have is creating an algorithm and ultimately a company that helps people tell us a little bit about your company reach, Unknown Speaker 04:47 right So at the risk of sounding like a needless bleeding heart. This is not the case at all. I just like being useful. And I like creating things that people find useful. Akua Nyame-Mensah 04:58 That's an important distinction to make. Because some people just want to create products, there doesn't have to be any problem solving, or even any clients. I built it. Right. So I like I like that distinction useful. Unknown Speaker 05:10 Yeah, I like I like that it's, you know, it's useful. So the first problem to be solved was a lack of clarity and just delete transaction data was hitting me this was a personal kind of like, I wonder what's really going on under the hood of my finances? And if and if there isn't a clean, clear way to extract this information and map it. And this is also because you know, data nerd alert, I just wanted things to be clear, graphical, quantifiable, I'm not one of the people who does, what the quantified. There's a there's a movement for the quantified self. No, this is a that's actually just purely clarify. But I know that this exists might actually also be out in the as a quantified self person, which I am not Akua Nyame-Mensah 05:52 having to Google that now. Unknown Speaker 05:54 But just like wanting to know what was happening, I just didn't, I didn't like being lost. And it turns out that there are many other people who also didn't like being lost. And I think starting off by asking you by literally, before anything is built, there was a lot of going out to the streets, talking to all kinds of people asking them the questions that I had about, you know, finances myself, and then saying, Okay, how do we create a basic way of corralling all this information into something that people don't understand. So that was the first kind of like, a hot moment. And then once we started engaging clients who had a trove of data, whether it's through surveys, or through focus groups, even or videos, or whatever it is, realising that there actually is a methodology that you can use to take a amorphous, no seemingly disparate data sources that actually, you know, this still inside out of it. I think that's been super cool. Yeah, Akua Nyame-Mensah 06:53 yeah. And I think that leads us to this last accomplishment, which is creating a framework methodology slash discipline that has brought measurable success to clients. Unknown Speaker 07:02 Yeah. So we're speaking there, transaction informatics. So that's the methodology that we use at reach. For all the work we do internal external, we always start by saying, if you're working in a marketplace with human beings who are making purchases, were making transaction decisions, start where they are, start with the transaction, start with the money flows that are happening. And then when you can, like make sense of that, go one level deeper and understand the social context that is driving or any which the transactions are happening as well as the consumption is happening. And then you can go even deeper down into the psychology and psychographics the the sense of self that determines how you hear what is said to you, how you extract value from what you see in front of you how you interpret the signals being sent to you by the marketplace. So those three things combined, that lead us to what we call the market playbook. And so once you have market playbook and you're, you know, running the play, what should you be tracking? So those are the know things that all come together to create this thing called transaction informatics that we created over at reach. Akua Nyame-Mensah 08:12 Oh, I'm excited to dive a little bit deeper into that. But before we do, I should probably give you the opportunity to actually introduce yourself. So Jr, who are you? And what do you do? Unknown Speaker 08:23 Okay, so who am I? What a broad and daunting question, who are you? Wow, I am a human being. Akua Nyame-Mensah 08:30 Yes, I love starting there. I actually do that right myself. Unknown Speaker 08:34 Yeah, I am a human being. I am a husband, a dad, a son, a brother, nephew, or cousin. And a friend, I actually have to say that I'm very proud of my accomplishment as people's very, very close friend. I also happens to be an entrepreneur, someone who started a company in 2016. And that company is called Reach. I'm also I would say you don't have some notoriety as Design Thinking coach type person. I have been an author. Nevermind, I still am an author. I should have said I have been a journalist. And in a past life, I've done a lot of coaching, counselling type work. But all of that stemming all the way back to just being a guy who likes to figure things out. So I have the brain of an engineer, the legals and I were very, very good friends. And I continue to figure or at least attempt to figure things out. Akua Nyame-Mensah 09:33 I love that introduction. And can you Yeah, actually share maybe a little bit more of how you got to reach right because like you said, You did things previous Yeah, prior to reach that are quite different. So what led you to want to build a business that's really around supporting people with Yeah, increasing their awareness around their finances and where their money's going and how they're spending? Unknown Speaker 09:57 So alright, think this probably goes all the way back to what does it go all the way back to I think that's actually a lot of like gaps we would have to like explain fails, let's not do that. Let's just go to graduate business school. I'm living, you're a grown up, you're working and you realise, I mean, I'm earning, this is good, I'm earning money, but actually don't know where my money's going. And that makes me very concerned. Why don't I know what's going on with my money like I should an MBA, I should know what's going on with my money, and I seem to not know what's going on with it. That's what actually led to wanting to create a chief that like sense of discomfort around the uncertainty, the lack of clarity, lack of action was a driving Viper question was, where is my money going? Because, yeah, it was just like, going. And I would say that, you know, like, as I mentioned earlier, talking about people going outside finding out if other people have the same question and realising that they did. Okay, great. So that's, that's a doorway that opened us into reach of 2016. Now, I think I mentioned that the more we engage, and you can see the kind of company that it is very human centred focus, engaging, listening, engaging, listening, you realise, it's not enough to just throw out an algorithm that tells people where their money's going, they want a little bit of guidance on how to make sense of what they're seeing. And so that brings us to where we're creating a newsletter from newsletter to this book. Well, because of the engagement we're having with people who are spending every day in stores, you know, have companies who want to engage those same people coming to us for guidance on how to speak the language of consumers. And so reach essentially has these two arms, the financial wellness side, we're engaging people and helping them make sense of their personal finances, be that through career or money management, because both things feed into your finances, or on the consumer insight side, where companies are coming to us and saying, How does this group or that group? Or where does my product or category fit in people's wallets, and we're able to bridge those two worlds really, really well actually, and make both sides of that equation work. So in terms of who we are today, reach is, you know, when we think of like, right, when I explained the company that people actually first start by saying it is a financial education company. Exactly. It's national ad tech, none of the other stuff exists, if we aren't showing, speaking, engaging on how to make sense of our finances, okay, like nothing else works, that people aren't able to really like, engage on that on that level. So the other aspects of how I like to define ourselves is, it's not like because you now have this book, you realise that there's a lot of ways maybe gap to fill, right? Like there's a knowledge gap, the book, yes, it was a great thing in response when people were asking, but those questions don't just get solved in a couple of chapters of a book. And so we've now gone into the world of literal education, we have curriculum, our entire newsletter follows a curriculum where we're very intentional about the kinds of engagements that we have now, because of that intention and care. That's quite a robust, and I guess, responsive community of people who make our work with our clients go by, you know, like, super smoothly. So if you are if you're a brand, and you need to engage people of a specific demographic in specific places, you want to like do a focus group survey, you run a poll, or you want to, you know, launch a new product, they want to know if it's gonna work, all of these things, they also serve as a consumer panel for the work that we're doing with consumer insights are Akua Nyame-Mensah 13:47 amazing. I just love how, you know, one, that human centeredness really comes through with how you've built this, it sounds like and I mean, feel free to correct me at any point in time, but it sounds like it's been very organic, right? So starting from you asking yourself like, okay, how can I increase my awareness around where my money is going? Does anyone else have this problem? Right? I can imagine that so many people would be like, Oh, no, I'm the only one. There's no way anyone else has this problem. And then thinking about it, I think, once again, very creatively, where it's not like, you know, not just necessarily, you know, even if you know, an app was built, but recognising that a newsletter can also solve a problem and help you generate income in the long term, right, generate revenue in the long term, a book can help you do that. And then seeing that there's also another side that you can serve with the same information as well. You know, I'm just curious, how do these you know, how did these ideas come to you? How did you even think to, you know, create it in this way? Was it something that just sort of happened? You know, were you getting these ideas through conversations you were having with other people? I'm just really curious because I feel so many founders I talked to, they just jumped to let me build something. It's got to be software. It's got to be an app. Unknown Speaker 14:57 So I think going out of the Office helps speaking to people who aren't like you, that really, really does help a lot. Because you can see, well, you experience how others see your product and see the service you provide. And I think that provides really, really good perspective. I am painfully introspective, which is painfully introspective. I actually spend time, probably so definitely once a year, where I review all the activities that are happening business wise, and figure out how they fit together, because I do like to see how things fit together. And if it doesn't fit, and I'm like, Oh, this probably shouldn't be here. So there's a lot of that introspection, because I don't know that you can be effective building a company, if you're not aware of where you want the company to go. And I think especially when things get tough, which inevitably, they will, knowing what you've built, while you're building it and where you want it to go. That can be a really good anchor, as you figure through the storm, as it were. So yeah, I'll take going outside and engaging, and then staying inside and reflecting, uh, huh. Akua Nyame-Mensah 16:04 Those two elements, and I'm curious, do you have, you know, a suggestion? So you mentioned that at least once a year, you'd sort of have this big think this big reflection time? Do you have any advice, maybe for founders that are having a hard time finding that, you know, product market fit, that you know, what's going to really help them engage their customers, especially if they have to educate their customers at the same time while they're selling. Unknown Speaker 16:26 So one of the things that was most valuable to me is an actually became a thing that like reach now sells as a service slash product is it's called a retrospective. It's a framework, nine questions that we use to look back in order to look forward. So you, you ask yourself, you know, there are a variety of questions, one of them being what worked, what brought joy, and also a little Marie Kondo, what sparks joy. What drains you, like all the there? I mean, there are nine questions I don't have in front of me right now. But I think that was probably the most powerful thing. And I've done that three years in a row now, I'm sorry, that in believe the end of 2020, so did that 2021 2022 2023, so three years in a row now. And I've just seen how powerful that kind of retrospection has been in my ability to see clearly because it's really easy to have your vision overrun by the good or the bad. Both sides of this can be can be dangerous. So that's probably what I would say, to really engage yourself in a retrospective, hands down. See, I'm very biassed, Akua Nyame-Mensah 17:37 I love it. I love it, you would think that I prepped you for this conversation, because I feel like that's one of the biggest things I always love to share with leaders is recognising that that creates space for that. And so many of them feel like they can't, right, they're on this hamster wheel, I have to go go go, I just got money from an investor, like I need to do it the way they want. I want to get into this thing. Therefore, I have to shift this part of my vision. So thank you for sharing that. Unknown Speaker 18:02 It's pleasure, obviously him like go to our website and download the retrospective for yourself. Yes, there is that? Akua Nyame-Mensah 18:09 Yes, we'll make sure that no, we definitely will include that in the show notes. Because I think, you know, hearing how this has worked for you, as someone who's in this space, I think will be very helpful for a lot of leaders, a lot of founders that struggle to create not just maybe to create the space, but to honour it right recognising it something they do need to create a habit a routine around, I'd love to to maybe transition to something that you spoke about a little earlier in relation to your accomplishments, sort of talking about the reach algorithm talking about transaction informatics. I'm hoping I'm saying that correctly. I love to Yeah, tell me a little bit more about it. How can companies use it for themselves? You know, okay, Unknown Speaker 18:47 so it is a five step process. And the first step and so first half of the transaction of Cymatics, process, one, look at transaction frequencies, look at the demographics of those who are transacting, look at the size of the market, using those frequencies, it's not a great idea to just trust or just take wholesale, whatever you've read about you the desktop research that says the size of the market as well, you know, who is buying, how frequently are they buying, what is the quantity that they are buying. So you create your own working, kind of like value of the size of this market and where you fit in it based on your, you know, your price. And then we do a thing called the reach quotients, which says based on the various targets, demographic targets you could pursue, which of those targets has the biggest share of the market wallet, because that also helps you really decide why you're going after you know, a specific audience and what you should invest to actually get that audience. We found that to be a forcing mechanism for all our clients to be like, Okay, here's what we're doing, and here's who we need in order to make that happen. Once you have that clarity around your target audience We now go to the next phase, which is the sociology, the design thinking part of it, you now know who you should target. So let's talk to them, let's observe them in their natural habitats. Let's have focus groups, let's survey them. Let's understand what needs and occasions you know what triggers them to engage this spending category, if you will, this market category with that clarity of just like, here's who my target audience is, on one hand, and then here is how they engage in their social context. Then we add on the third layer, which is what is their spending personality, because so if you look through some of the work we've done, there are these five spending personalities, you have a familiarity personality, that doesn't like change. And we show up in different ways in different contexts. So you might be familiarity person in your toiletries, right, but you might be a different a different spending personality in something else. So there are these five spending personalities you have familiarity, you have the affirmation those who essentially affirm their sense of self or feel affirmed by the choices they make. So a bit like a bit of like, you know, the like brand names, but I don't think it's a, it's that's a quick shorthand to explain them, you have a carefree, he's carefree, he's really just like, feel that you just need to get the job done. And they don't really care too much about what it is you're peddling as long as it does the job. So what they see first is what they're gonna get, you have the economist, now, they are the almost like exact opposites of the carefree ease, they have very clear idea of what value means to them, it could be quantity, or it could be process that went into creating that time. So understanding who they are and how they receive value is going to be important for you, if that's the core of your constituency. And finally, you have the people who are social proof, people, people who won't move forward without seeing that recommendation, or hearing that a friend is also using it. So these five personalities show up in different quantities, if you will, across different categories of spending. So when you combine the frequency and the market sizing, right, you layer that in with the needs occasions, the triggers that you know people are engaging in, you now know how to communicate clearly because you know, you can see why we call it the market playbook, because you literally hand that over to your team in your marketing strategy. As you were planning, you name it department, and they know exactly what they need to do to connect the very, very relevant and replicable way with your target audience. So that's step four, creating the market playbook. So step one, is looking at transaction information. Step two, all the social kind of like Design Thinking social focus groups, all the social context work. Step three is like a graphic work. Step four, create a market playbook. We don't think you market playbook is always infallible. In fact, we strongly suggest that part of your playbook is AV testing, which is, you know, then your stage five, what are you testing? And what are you tracking? So when you find somebody that works is because the market playbook is meant to be dynamic and engaging. So as you find things that work, you move them out of the test phase and into the ongoing tracking phase. So you're always on the pulse of what your target consumer needs and how they perceive and how you engage ongoing. And so what we've also seen really worked well, in this transaction informatics process has really been the ability for new ways of engaging an audience. So rather than thinking how much quote unquote noise do I need to make you start thinking of your engagement with them more as this is my community of consumers? Yeah, there you go. Akua Nyame-Mensah 23:31 I love it. I love that framework. And as someone who has been a longtime subscriber of your newsletter, I know that this is what you've been putting into place, you know, all these years. And so I'm curious in terms of the types of individuals that use maybe more of the the reach app, what type of consumer are they? Unknown Speaker 23:53 So different countries have different personalities? So it really depends, we find that people in East Africa who use the app, for instance, who are more of you know, they like structure know, they like what they like they like clarity like structure, while on the one of the West African side more like my guess Nigerian specifically, they're more they have their own interpretation of value, and you need to find out what that is in order to actually respond. So it's not fair to say they are quote unquote value buyers, the way you know, other people might use it, that value could be in quantity, it could be in process, it can be in quality, it could be in exclusivity sometimes. So understanding what they mean by value and then exactly economics of it. And then we have found actually a surprising surprising to me, group of social proof buyers in the United States and another nice contingent of carefree buyers in the United States. So that is, you know, again, these are just Super, super broad strokes, people behave differently in different spending category. So you might bring your most economists self when you are choosing a house and your most carefree self when you are choosing a drink. So people that behave differently in different spending context. Yeah. Akua Nyame-Mensah 25:20 Yeah, I know. I love that. And I think one time when we had a conversation, you mentioned that there is sort of an assessment that individuals can take Correct. Can we link that in the show notes as well to give people Unknown Speaker 25:31 access to on the website? Yep. With pleasure, with pleasure to go find out your spending personality and see what that says about you? Akua Nyame-Mensah 25:38 Yeah, I'm looking forward to it, I actually will definitely take it. I'm always one to take assessments and sort of see what value I can draw a new language I can use to talk about myself, maybe to wrap us up, I'd love to hear you talk a bit more about the book that you wrote, how did you even have the time and space to get this book done? And, you know, do you have any advice maybe for any tech leaders or founders that are considering writing a book Unknown Speaker 26:04 outlines or your friend, the outline took a lot longer to write than the book itself? Akua Nyame-Mensah 26:09 I'm curious, like, Do you have any thoughts to as to why is it more of like, what you want to leave out where you want to Unknown Speaker 26:15 go? I think it's, it's what you want to say, but knowing that you don't have a lot of time to ramble. And so structuring what needs to be said in a cohesive, kind of like, logical laid out fashion. So figuring out the chapters was the first step. And then, as you start creating the subsections of each chapter, you realise, oh, that chapter doesn't need to be by itself, I can collapse into this or into that. And so that happened. So it was, you know, the outline chapters and the subsections of the chapters, and then start writing. But that process of saying, what are the chapters of this book? Like, what must this book cover? How should it cover it? What is the scope of this coverage? That is what actually took the longest, longest time? And I think it's because yeah, there's a lot you could be doing with it, it is overwhelming. But I think just telling yourself, I just have to put this in the, you know, the outline format, and the bullet points that was actually being literally it was written bullet points, right, and then the paragraph under each of the big bullet points, and like, literally the way you would write cash, and it seems that everybody has written college paper, but I found myself going back to those big, you know, 15 page, liberal arts, philosophy and religion, and, you know, sociology, college papers that had your writing and researching, and how did I do those, again, outlines? Akua Nyame-Mensah 27:38 And would you recommend that, you know, a tech startup, consider writing a book, even though it's not very techy? Unknown Speaker 27:44 I mean, I don't think it's for everyone, we're not the first to do it. But I do think if you find that you are answering a lot of the same questions, if you find that you have a group of people who would benefit from hearing about the way you think about stuff, and may not always be quick to hop on the tech side of things, because that's actually what has happened, right? We've opened this entire new world, to people that we wouldn't have had if all we did was tech. So you have a lot of students who are reading like, you know, students who don't yet have a smartphone, but you know, someone is buying the book for them. Or you have people who are, like, older and not going to go download an app, but the like to know that somebody's thinking through these things. And it has actually opened up the door for us to work with mission driven, impact driven organisations that know that, okay, we may not start off with the app side, but like there is this book, let's actually go get this book into the hands of X number of people. So we've done work that has been funded by the Ford Foundation, MasterCard Foundation, and trying to think if there are any other like, large kind of global names that people will know. But those are two big ones anyway, so those are massive. Yeah, exactly. Akua Nyame-Mensah 29:00 Yeah. Wow, I love it. Once again, I just love how you're just always thinking about how can I add value? You know, it seems like it's constantly sort of like a win win. At the end of the day. Maybe? Yeah, it's a close up. What are you excited about next? What are you looking forward to? Unknown Speaker 29:15 So after the retrospective of 2023, I guess it's a 2022 retrospective, as I'm, you know, facing 2023. I'm really excited for all the new ways we are going to be working with clients. So I know that sounds kind of like vague. So I'm going to be a little bit more specific. When we did as a company, the retrospective of the other things that make us special, what really works, we found that a lot of it sits with our community. And one of the cool things we get to do is to actually bridge the gap and connect the brands that serve this community to the community. So I'm really excited for all the new programmes we're starting. We're starting a we're starting a digital act. speeches programme because you have a bunch of people who actually want to show off the brands they use. And I'm really excited about that. Were starting a customer loyalty programme for people who I mean, you're you're spending anyway. And then you want to connect with you, I'm really excited for so a lot of the work that we do, which was actually hermetics, actually, its most powerful when you build that into your organisation. And so we're actually starting to do a lot more work of companies asking us to help them build teams that think this way. That is super cool. Yeah. Akua Nyame-Mensah 30:33 Wow. Well, I'm looking forward to having another conversation and maybe even diving a little bit deeper into that as you start to do that with companies. But Jr, thank you. Thank you so much for your time for your thoughts. For individuals or companies maybe who are looking to partner with you or learn more about what you do, where can they find you. Unknown Speaker 30:51 So I think the best way given that a conversation is required. Let's just go to LinkedIn. Akua Nyame-Mensah 30:56 All right. Well, thank you again, Jr. It's always a lot of fun to connect, and I always learned so much. So thank you. Unknown Speaker 31:02 Thanks. Cool. Thanks for having me. Akua Nyame-Mensah 31:05 Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode. Please share this episode with someone who can benefit from its contents. If you found this episode helpful, I want to ask you to leave a review. 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